Thursday, February 16, 2012

"Short Term Stops", #6: Joe Carter

What you see here is quite possibly my favorite card to ever come out of a Donruss set.

I say it about a lot of my cards, but it's especially true for this one: This is one of my personal favorites from my collection.

I've always liked these unfamiliar uniform-themed cards. I've collected them for as long as I remember, even when I was into football and basketball cards as a wee lad.

One of my first "quests" as a kid was to find a card of Joe Carter on the Cubs. I'm not sure why, but I really wanted one. I looked everywhere, but I couldn't find any. I just assumed that there was never one produced after a while.

Around freshman year of high school, I started to get back into collecting baseball cards after a short plunge into collecting hockey.

At one of the first card shows I attended that year, I came across a little box with half-price rookie cards. My eyes lit up when I first saw it. Joe Carter on the Cubs! I couldn't believe it.

Carter was the Cubs' first round pick in 1981. He made his major league debut in 1983, hitting just .176 with one RBI in 23 games for Chicago.

He'd be traded to Cleveland that offseason, in the trade that brought ace Rick Sutcliffe to the Windy City.

Ever since getting the original Joe Carter rookie, I've acquired two other cards of him in a Cubs uniform. But they're both just reprints of this card.

Call me crazy, but Carter's rookie is my favorite card in the set. Not the Don Mattingly.

Joe Carter's finest moment was obviously his walk-off homer in Game 6 of the 1993 World Series, bringing the title back to Toronto.

But as far as my baseball cards go, Carter's finest moment came with Donruss in 1984.

I think this card is better than the Mattingly as well. But this doesn't come close to being Carter's best card. His best card goes hand-in-hand with his teammate in what I like to call the "jheri-curl twins." 1986 Topps Joe Carter and Julio Franco. They looks very similar and both are sporting great jheri-curls.